


Do The Voices

by ghostnebula



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 08:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8704420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostnebula/pseuds/ghostnebula
Summary: Arcade loses his glasses. 
  Written for the Atomic Wrangler Kink Meme.





	

"Nope, haven’t seen 'em," says Six, hunched over the table, too busy cleaning the barrel of his pistol with a dirty rag to even look up. 

"Right, well." Arcade puts his hands on his hips as he squints around the room. "Just... keep an eye out. I kind of need my glasses to do all the important things like stitching up wounds and, you know, generally seeing."

"Gotcha."

Arcade takes about ten steps out of the Lucky 38’s rec room before something metal and glass crunches under his foot and he swears in anguish.

"Hey, there they are!" Six calls out, whooping with laughter at his own joke. He bites his cheek and tries to muffle his mirth when Arcade walks back in, but he looks so forlorn cradling his smashed glasses in his hands that a chuckle slips out anyway.

"Sorry." He offers a sheepish smile when Arcade glares at him. "That really is a cryin’ shame."

"Oh, well. _Sic transit gloria mundi_ ," Arcade says, as he unceremoniously dumps his glasses into the bin. He looks at it for a quiet moment as if he’s mentally giving them a eulogy. "A shame, indeed. You know how hard it is to find glasses that work and look good on me? I really was prepared to wear those the rest of my life."

"Shoot." Six sucks his teeth, feeling kinda sorry for laughing. "Can you cope without 'em for now?"

"I’m going to have to." Arcade sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I managed to go without up until I was in my early twenties, after all. For the longest time, I just assumed people were lying about being able to read things without having to stand a couple of feet away." 

The plan for today had been to take it easy. A quiet relaxing afternoon indoors as a welcome reprieve from trekking from one end of the sun-bleached Mojave to the other. At least, it was supposed to be relaxing 'til the good doctor couldn’t find his glasses and practically turned the Lucky 38 upside down trying to find them. Six did say that they’d be in the last place Arcade looked which, tragically, happened to be under his boot. 

Still, after that eventful detour, Arcade seems determined to keep their afternoon on track, and he picks up the book he’d been reading last night and joins Six at the table - which is mostly covered with gun parts. Six’s idea of a relaxing day is to disassemble every single one of his weapons and clean 'em 'til they sparkle, even if that means dirtying the table with pieces of metal and grease smudges. When Arcade sits down, Six sweeps the parts into a tighter pile so Arcade has a little more room to rest his elbows. 

For a while, the only sounds in the Lucky 38 are the soft _clinks_ of metal bumping against metal and the occasional _swish_ of a turning page. It’s nice, sitting in relative silence and enjoying each other’s company. They never get a chance to just _be_ , Six thinks, to just sit together without worrying about all the shit that needs doing. He feels a rush of fondness towards the doc and looks away from his work, ready to gaze at him like the smitten fool he is, but then he almost breaks the quiet with a loud snort of laughter.

Arcade’s holding the book at arm’s length and appears to be... struggling. He keeps leaning his head back, looking down the sharp bridge of his nose, brow furrowed as he focuses. With the way he’s wrinkling his nose and narrowing his eyes, he looks like he’s just taken a bite out of a sour mutfruit. 

"That can’t be good for ya," Six says, leaning back in his chair and scratching the stubble on his chin. "Not enough light in here. You’re gonna make your eyes worse, squintin’ like that."

"That’s a myth, _mother_ ," Arcade says pointedly, as he swipes his thumb across the tip of his tongue and uses it to turn the page. "Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to eat some carrots tonight to counteract all the irreparable damage I’m doing."

Six shakes his head, tutting, as he turns his attention back to cleaning his gun. At least he can say he tried. 

They go back to what they were doing only this time the silence starts to get increasingly punctuated by Arcade tsking and sighing. Six’s gaze slides away from his pistol and he watches him out of the corner of his eye; watches the deepening crease in his brow, how he keeps stopping and scrunching his eyes shut. After a few more minutes of this, the book drops to the table and Arcade buries his face in his hands, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. Before Six can say anything, Arcade walks over to the faded couch and flings himself down into it, grabbing a pillow and pulling it over his face.

"S’wrong?" Six calls out.

"Headache," he mumbles out from underneath faded satin. He starts to make some smart quip about the tragedy of losing one of the few pleasures he has left in life but he can’t get the words to come together so he trails off, grousing. 

He always did get a little surly when he was sore. Six smiles to himself and gets up, leaving his pistol in pieces for now. He picks Arcade’s book off the table as he makes his way to the couch, giving Arcade a little nudge when he draws near. 

"C’mon," he says, "budge up."

"Well, aren’t you the gentleman." Arcade takes the pillow off his face, looking up at Six with a raised eyebrow. "Come to read to the poor ailing patient languishing away in his gurney?" 

"Don’t you make me regret it now," Six says, but there’s a smile in his voice all the same.

It’s a small couch and they’re both tall fellows but they managed to coordinate themselves so that Six is sitting down with Arcade’s head lying on his lap and his long legs dangling over the arm of the couch. He wriggles and squirms for a moment as he gets comfortable 'til he finds the sweet spot on Six’s thick thigh. Content, he rests his hands on the soft curve of his stomach, fingers intertwined, rising and dipping as he breathes. 

Six opens the book to the page Arcade’s marked with a dog-ear. It takes him a moment to sort out the words, focusing hard 'til the letters stop jumbling around and start to make a fraction of sense. While he’s reading, his free hand finds Arcade’s hair and starts gently toying with the soft curls.

"Don’t forget to do the voices," Arcade says, lips quirked in a self-satisfied smirk.

Six blinks. "This is a medical book."

"So?"

He chuckles, sighs. "Sew buttons." 

Six isn’t the best reader but he grips the book tightly anyway, as if holding it firm will make the words behave, and gives it his best shot. He even does try to do some voices - putting on accents whenever the text quotes someone, reading image descriptions with a Protectron-style inflection - 'til they both start laughing and Arcade reprimands Six for jostling him. 

It was easier reading when he could crack wise and make things up. Much harder trying to do it seriously, navigating long words and densely packed paragraphs. He keeps at it though, tracking his place with his thumb, reading slow and steady with only the occasional stumble.

To his credit, Arcade is incredibly patient. It’d be easy for him to speak over Six, to blurt out the actual word whenever he starts stuttering, stuck on letters that move and shift. But he doesn’t. He stays quiet for the most part, only offering input when Six mutters a sheepish 'can ya help me out here?’

"Ph... phoso-tin... photo-tinthus-- _shit_." Six sighs. "Sorry."

"No, no," Arcade mutters, his voice soft like he’s on the verge of sleep, and he reaches up to where Six’s hand is nestled in his hair, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "You’re doing great. It’s 'photosynthesis’."

"Hah." Six ducks his head, averting his eyes even though Arcade’s got his closed. "You think?"

"I don’t think, I know. It is absolutely 'photosynthesis’." 

"Not about _that_ ," Six says, and he jogs his leg just enough to nudge Arcade’s head. "The other thing."

"Well, I know this isn’t... easy for you," Arcade says, taking the time to pick his words with tact. "But your efforts haven’t gone unappreciated. It was very kind of you to come read to me in my hour of need. And you really are doing well."

A warm flush spreads across Six’s cheek. "S’nice of you to say," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "Doesn’t really bother me none, though, not being partial to the written word. That’s your domain. You’ve got the books, I’ve got the looks."

He bends over and kisses Arcade on the forehead, his whiskers brushing soft skin. "Fair trade, wouldn’t you say?"

Arcade lets out a huff of laughter and gently swats Six’s bristly chin away. "Keep going."

Six keeps reading at his slow and steady pace, plodding along like an old Brahmin. Arcade’s corrections get quieter and quieter 'til soon they stop coming, and the only sound that comes from him is a gentle snoring. Six keeps one hand tousled in the curls of Arcade’s hair, his head a warm heavy weight against his lap, and uses the other to fold over a corner of the page he’s on - saving his place for next time.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the [Atomic Wrangler Kink Meme](https://atomicwrangler.dreamwidth.org/325.html?thread=65605#cmt65605).


End file.
